President Offers His Personal Iran Notes to Congress

President Reagan, seeking to avoid a Watergate-like confrontation with Congress, pledged Monday to give congressional investigators all excerpts from his private notes that are relevant to the Iran- contra affair.

Members of special Senate and House investigating committees welcomed Reagan’s offer, even though some senators questioned whether the President could be trusted to divulge relevant but embarrassing notes.

Several members of Congress suggested the appointment of a special intermediary to review all of the President’s personal papers and to make an independent judgment about which documents are relevant to the investigation.

“If we leave it up to the White House to make the decision, the public will never be sure if we have seen all the relevant material,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren (D-Okla.) said.

Reagan’s willingness to turn over some of his notes was announced by White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, who emphasized that it is consistent with his earlier offers to cooperate with congressional investigators and his expressed desire to get to “the bottom of the matter and fix what went wrong.”

“President Reagan will continue to provide all information required by those conducting the inquiries into the Iran matter,” Fitzwater said. “Should it be determined the material is needed, the President is willing to make available relevant excerpts from his personal notes.”

‘Diary-Like’ Material

Although White House officials announced Sunday that Reagan’s handwritten notes--described as “personal, diary-like impressions”--were protected from congressional subpoena by executive privilege, officials confessed Monday that their statement had been released without checking with the President. When Reagan was consulted on Monday, Fitzwater said, he agreed to cooperate.

“We went into the Oval Office and asked him if he would release the notes,” said a White House official, who asked not to be identified. “He said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

During the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, by contrast, former President Richard M. Nixon claimed that the doctrine of executive privilege protected White House tape recordings from congressional scrutiny. The courts rejected that claim, and Nixon was forced to give Congress tapes of conversations related to Watergate.

Want to See ‘Everything’

Even before President Reagan’s offer to provide Congress with Iran-related notes was known, the chairmen of the Senate and House investigating committees, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), said that they were interested in reading the presidential notes. “We’re interested in everything,” Inouye said.

Neither committee has formally requested the notes yet.

Hamilton noted that his committee already had asked the White House for all documents relating to the arms sales and the diversion of profits to Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista rebels, but he acknowledged that the request did not specifically cover Reagan’s personal notes because “we didn’t know they existed.” However, he said he believes the earlier request is broad enough to include the President’s notes.

Both Boren and Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.) said they agreed that Reagan should not be required to provide anything beyond the notes that are relevant to the investigation. Boren and Cohen serve on both the Senate investigating committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose hearings uncovered the existence of the President’s notes.

“I’d just hate to see a truck of the President’s personal diaries coming over here,” Boren said. Cohen added: “I do not want to see a wholesale perusal of the President’s private papers.”

Compromise Predicted

At the same time, they said that many members of Congress would not be satisfied to allow the President to decide himself what papers to provide. They predicted that the White House and Congress would be able to reach a compromise that would allow the papers to be reviewed by an independent third party acceptable to both sides.

“We have to approach this matter with some sensitivity and delicacy,” Cohen said. “I am confident that a responsible balance can be achieved that will satisfy the committee’s investigatory responsibilities while protecting the privacy of the President’s personal papers.”

A White House official, who refused to be identified, indicated that the President’s staff would be willing to discuss such an approach with the congressional investigating committees.

Staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.